Alec

by William di Canzio

Alec sat on the bed and read the letter again. He closed his eyes and pictured his father writing … Where would he have sat? At that little table in Alec’s old room? Yes! Where his schoolboy son had worked equations and drawn triangles and identified parts of speech. He pictured his father, hunched, his rough large hand guiding a pen in the delicate task of forming words on paper, giving shape to a passion beyond words, that of his fatherhood. Alec kissed the letter. He said aloud, to no one, “I want to be buried with this.” And for the second time in his life, the knowledge of being loved overwhelmed him. The first time, when the kingfisher danced near the boathouse at Penge, the knowledge had washed over him like water, like the rain on the pond, cleansing him of his doubts and freeing him to trust Maurice and to stay in England to make their love real. This second time, in spite of the cottage’s dust and shadow, the knowledge came as light. The light revealed that he was loved to his core, also that he had done nothing to earn or merit such love, but that it was love’s nature to love.